


the most enlightening findings of Dr. Erica Takahashi

by emptyhollowgirl



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 03:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17296820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptyhollowgirl/pseuds/emptyhollowgirl
Summary: Peni politely raises a grievance with her friends.





	the most enlightening findings of Dr. Erica Takahashi

On the rooftop of a perfectly innocuous building, the most abnormal group of friends in New York was having a mostly normal night. Miles and Gwen were sitting on the roof's edge, chatting about what made the ideal tagging spot. Peni was perched comfortably on top of SP//dr, fiddling with her tablet and aiming only half an ear towards the three Peters. Ham was tapping his foot impatiently, looking between the two human men. Noir was standing in a perfectly unremarkable way that managed to simultaneously invoke the feeling of being under a heavy torrent of cold, unforgiving rain in whoever looked at him. Peter B. was grumpy.

"Hey. Kiddos." He whistled for the younger three's attention as if they were a pack of adorable but ill-trained dogs. "Anyone think of anything for food tonight, or are we all still-"

"Still burgers, Peter." Gwen replied without looking at him. Miles and Peni both gave a brief nod in agreement. 

"Right right. Like I gotta ask." He sighed, lowering his voice to a grumble. "Fucking surprise, it's burgers-"

A gloved hand knocked against the side of his head. " _Language,_ Parker," Noir growled.

Peter rolled his eyes. " _English,_ Parker _._ "

Another knock. "There are children present." But despite the plural, Peni noted Noir gestured firmly- _specifically-_  in her direction.

Peni sighed, but said nothing.

Despite another pointed eye-roll, Peter relented. "Right, right, sorry, I'm just saying-"

Miles finally looked back at him, raising an eyebrow. "Since when are you not down for a burger, man?"

"Believe it or not, Miles, I'm not just a food processing machine. I have tastes. I have _moods_. Sometimes I'm feeling something more adventurous than just burgers."

"Oh yeah?" Gwen asked. "And what exactly is the _mood_ for tonight?"

"What- I dunno, pizza?"

Gwen snorted. " _Wow,_ dream big." Miles snickered.

"Look, I'm just saying, is anyone else not tired of the same goddamn thing-"

" _Language._ "

Another gesture from Noir.

Another sigh from Peni.

"-of the same thing every time we do this?"

"No offense Peter," Ham piped up, "but I'm beginning to get the feeling this may be a case of misplaced aggression."

"Oh for crying out loud-"

Noir clasped a gentle hand on Peter's shoulder, nodding solemnly. "It's understandable, Peter. A man should never have to face that kind of betrayal from one of his few, solitary creature comforts."

Peter gave Noir a thin, fake smile. "Noir, it was a bad burger, can you maybe not act like somebody died."

Ham patted the large chaise couch that had apparently appeared behind him when no one was looking. "Do you want to talk about it, Peter?"

" _No,_ Porker, I shockingly _don't_ want to talk about the ONE TIME I had a shitty fucking burger!"

_"Language!"_

Peni groaned, cradling her forehead in her hand. "Oh for _fuck's sakes._ "

After a moment, she looked up at the others. From Gwen (wide eyes, lips frozen open around a syllable) to Ham (jaw literally laying on the ground, tongue fluttering quietly in the wind, the only sound to break the sudden dead silence around her), all of Peni's fellow Spider-folk were currently staring at her like she had just sprouted a couple of new heads.

She sighed.

"Okay. Look, guys-" SP//dr helpfully lifted a hand so Peni could step down. "-especially you, Noir." Noir didn't respond. He was completely still- even his coat had abruptly stopped blowing in the ever-present, non-present wind that seemed to follow him. "It's very sweet how you're all like 'aaaa, don't swear in front of Peni, watch your mouth in front of the kid!!' and all that, but you _do_ know in my dimension- in my _time_ , things like 'fuck' and 'shit' aren't really 'bad words,' right?"

No one responded. Apparently they didn't know that.

"Like, it's not _polite_ , but only really, _really_ old people ride your ass-" (A soft moan-like squeak emerged from behind Noir's mask.) "-about it if you talk like that- like, once I was having a hard time taking down a kaiju, so I was getting all frustrated, saying stuff like 'ugh, why won't this cocksucker-'" (A low moan from Noir's mask. Next to him, the edges of Peter's mouth twitched like he was about to break into hysterical laughter.) "'-just die,' trash talk, all that. But afterwards one of the old Oscorp geezers who runs communications gave me a lecture, all 'be mindful, you are a professional and have an open feed, blah blah' and all that, as if I can't hear him dropping Ultra-Swears™ over the line like every other sentence!"

Peni lifted her arms in exasperation, searching the faces of her friends for any sort of shared indignation for the injustice she had to put up with. She still just found bug-eyed disbelief.

She sighed again.

"And another thing, why aren't you like that with Gwen and Miles? We're the same age- I think Miles is younger than me!- I can't remember how old you are, Miles, no offense-" She aimed it in a slightly gentler tone towards Miles, who didn't seem offended, or any emotion other than Did Peni Just Say Cocksucker In Front Of My Ears. "-So why am I different? Why am _I_ the one who gets treated like a little kid?!" She stomped her foot to punctuate herself. "I've been piloting SP//dr since I was _nine,_ but I guess you all just collectively decided, _Oh No, Peni Is The Delicate Little Flower, She Is The Baby, She Can Not Handle Our Adult Swears,_ because- because I'm short, I guess?? Like, what the fuck guys?!"

Peni let her hands fall to her sides with twin slaps of sound. She stood there for a moment, waiting for someone, _anyone_ , to respond.

Finally, Gwen broke the silence.

"What... is an Ultra-Swear."

"Huh?" Peni responded, distracted. It was only after a few moments of processing Gwen's question that she brightened. "Oh, Ultra-Swears!™"

( _"How is she pronouncing that?"_ Miles hissed towards Peter from the corner of his mouth.)

"That's actually a pretty interesting story! See, about 70 years ago- well, in my dimension, I mean- there was this scientist named Erica Takahashi who discovered that there were some syllables that, when pronounced in certain sequences, could cause psychic and emotional damage to the listener! And one thing led to another and she trademarked Ultra-Swears™, and those became the kind of words you use when you REALLY want to leave an impact, stuff like

ROT13ZWGBCF

and

ROT13CRGREOBGGBZCNEXRE

and-"

 **BANG.** Peni jumped as the bulb of a nearby streetlight suddenly exploded. It was immediately followed by the cacophony of several car alarms in the vicinity being set off at once. Before anyone could comment on either of these things, Peter, Gwen, Miles, and Spider-Ham all fell to their knees, clutching at their heads and twitching in various ways. It was remarkably similar to the glitching problem they had all dealt with the first time they had met, but with less glitching and more of the thankfully-less-serious symptoms that Peni recognized as... the psychic and emotional damage typically associated with Ultra-Swears™.

"Oh," said Peni. "Oops."

 _"Agle-bagle-agle-bagle..."_ Ham mumbled, thick black swirls rotating in the eye holes of his mask.

 _"Oh God,"_ Peter muttered, face planted flat on the ground. " _I was her seahorse, her SEAHORSE, why couldn't you be her seahorse, Parker?"_

"Eheheh _..."_ Peni scratched the back of her head sheepishly as a bead of sweat rolled down the edge of her face. "I kind of... should have seen this coming, huh..." Watching her friends babble incoherently as the effects of the Ultra-Swears™ ran their course, her smile melted into exasperation as she dragged a hand down her face. "Smooth fucking move, Peni..."

 **THUD.** Noir collapsed on Ham's forgotten chaise couch, unconscious. If anyone had looked under his mask, they would have found his face as white as a greyscale sheet.

**Author's Note:**

> the "Peni legally can not say fuck" brand of jokes are funny, but as a pedantic nerd i have to point out that logically there would be a ton of linguistic drift by 3145 and, hello, the results of that clearly have potential for COMEDY GOLD


End file.
